


Anger Always Comes

by Waldo



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode s03e14 Tao of Rodney, Established Relationship, M/M, Massage, established threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-18
Updated: 2007-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events in "The Tao of Rodney", Carson begins pulling away from the people that mean the most to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anger Always Comes

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/ladykoori/profile)[**ladykoori**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/ladykoori/) for the once-over. This doesn't exactly fit in with anything else I've written, but if you really want to, you could put this in the same alternate universe as the AU section of the Grace Under Pressure chapter of The Human Body Series - [More Than Just a Sympathetic Ear](http://smallwaldo.livejournal.com/21545.html) Written for: beckettsheppard's 2+1 Challenge

_"Anger always comes from frustrated expectations."_

 

Carson had, of course, insisted on checking Rodney out after everything he'd been through. He understood that genetically, Rodney should be exactly the way he was about three days ago – slightly hypertensive, slightly hypoglycemic and more than slightly melodramatic, but he wanted to be sure.

But all was as it should have been, and an hour later Carson had released Rodney to his quarters with orders to take it easy for a few days even if he didn't feel like he needed to.

And now, finally, there was time to decompress.

Carson came home to find Radek sitting up reading on his bed. He hung his lab coat on the peg in the closet and sat on the edge of the bed to take his shoes off. Radek set his book down and slid forward and hooked his chin over Carson's shoulder. "Rodney is well?"

Carson kicked off his shoes and turned to Radek. "Aye. Not a thing wrong with him that wasn't wrong with him last week. He's lucky that damned machine didn't try to get a genetic baseline and recreate him from scratch. He could have lost the ATA gene."

Radek nodded at that. He understood, probably better than Carson did, what losing the ATA gene and all of the attendant abilities would have done to Rodney.

Carson reached for the hem of Radek's shirt. "And how are you?"

Radek captured Carson's hands in his, halting their movement. "I am fine. And if I thought for a second that you were removing my shirt for anything other than a professional inspection, I would most certainly let you. But I know you are still worrying that I will drop dead without warning. I am fine, Carson. _ Fine_," he emphasized, squeezing Carson's hands tightly.

"Fine," Carson echoed bitterly, pulling away and stalking into the bathroom. A few seconds later the shower could be heard through the closed door.

John had come in just in time to see Carson barrel into the bathroom, without even seeing him as he passed. He raised an eyebrow at the closed door. He didn't look away from it as he addressed Radek. "What was that about?"

Radek sighed and shrugged, waiting until John sat where Carson had just been moments ago, before speaking. "He cannot let it go. I am fine, yet he insists on checking scars and wounds that are not there."

"He thought he was going to lose you," John said quietly. "I think he's resigned himself to the idea that he could lose me to my job on any given day. You're an engineer. Theoretically a safe position."

"In the Pegasus Galaxy? He has to know there is no such thing."

"Intellectually, sure, but one of the reason we work is because I know that if something does happen to me I'm not leaving a partner to mourn alone. It's one of the reasons I resisted getting involved with anyone for so long. And this is the first major injury you've had. It's rattled him a little. And between you and me, it's probably bothering him a little that he didn't save you. If he'd done his thing, everything would have proceeded along a very predictable path. He as no idea if this is going to come around and bite you in the ass at some point when we least expect it."

Radek just shrugged. He didn't like the odd space he was feeling grow between him and Carson since the incident. He wanted things to be back the way they were. For that damned Ancient device to reset _everything_ to where it was a week ago.

John stood, pulling off his jacket. "I'll go talk to him."

&lt;{*}&gt;

Carson hung his head, letting the water run down his face when he heard the bathroom door open. He could see an ill-defined shape through the fogged shower door. Judging by height and hair it was John. Instinctively he knew that Radek had told him what happened. He'd not wanted to bring John into it. He wanted his own paranoia to fade and for Radek's frustration to dissipate without John having to feel as if he were some kind of mediator.

The door slid open and John slid in behind him, his arms wrapped around Carson's middle, his chin on Carson's shoulder as Radek's had been when Carson had sat on the bed. "You pissed at me too?"

"I'm not pissed at anyone," Carson muttered, scrubbing his face with his palms.

"Radek thinks you're pissed at him or something." John began slowly massaging Carson's shoulders.

"I'm not."

"You might want to tell him that," John said bracing Carson against his arm so he could lean the heel of his hand into a knot under Carson's shoulderblade. "You're a mess," he commented when the stubborn knot refused to yield.

Carson grew even stiffer in response to that. "It's been a long few days," he bit out.

"I know, I know." John tried not to sound defensive. "But it's okay now. You can relax. Everyone's all right. Rodney's okay, Radek's okay…"

"For now," Carson muttered, not relaxing at all.

John turned Carson to face him. "Sometimes that's the best we can do. We all know what it's like out here."

Carson studied a rivulet of water running down the wall behind John's shoulder. "Aye, we do. But _I'm_ the one expected to fix it when it all goes to hell." He turned back to the wall, hoping John wouldn't try to get him to look him in the eye again. He wasn't sure he could. He wasn't entirely sure where this particular sulk was coming from, but he was afraid it wouldn't be passing quickly. He'd damn near lost both Rodney and Radek inside of a week. There'd been more close calls with John than he cared to count. And then, of course, there were all those he'd been unable to do anything for. He let his forehead rest against the wall.

John's hands on his shoulders again startled him. He'd somehow managed to forget that he was there, so lost in his thoughts – his misery – as he was.

"Easy," John cooed when Carson jumped. "You do know that we don't expect miracles of you."

"Yes you do," Carson retorted bitterly. He was starting to realize that whereas many doctors on Earth frequently bought into their own P.R. – getting cut to the quick when they lost a patient after being told so many times that they were infallible and miraculous – but that here, he was becoming a victim to his own reputation. There had been so many times that he and his team had pulled someone's ass out of the fire that everyone around him was beginning there was nothing he couldn't do.

Yet twice in so short a time, Rodney – who called medicine 'voodoo' and called him a 'quack' – had saved people when he'd been unable to.

"No, we don't," John countered softly. "We might hope and pray a lot, and we do put a lot of faith in you, but we know there are limits to what medicine – even medicine aided by Ancient technology - can do. So stop kicking yourself because Rodney was the one that came up with the idea that that stupid machine he was playing with was what could save him."

"He's going to be even more insufferable with his bloody 'voodoo' comments and his opinion on the uselessness of medicine," Carson complained.

"Yeah, probably, but you're the one who's usually most able and willing to tell Rodney where to shove his obnoxiousness. What's really bothering you?"

"Radek almost died!" Carson shouted, finally admitting to himself that had Rodney not been there, that he could have easily lost a lover. The burns were extensive and his heart muscle badly damaged. Even if he'd been able to keep him alive, there was no doubt that he would have been sent back to Earth - to a burn unit - for months, possibly years of rehabilitation. Especially if he'd lost blood to the brain for much longer than he had.

"I know," John said softly. "But remember that Rodney's also the one who did that to him. Yes, he saved him, but he's also the one to cause the accident from fucking around with that machine he didn't understand." John reached up and started on some of the more rigid muscles in Carson's neck.

Carson sighed. He was tired and he didn't want to talk about this anymore. He was tired of feeling like he'd been one step behind everyone through this whole ordeal. He wanted to sleep without nightmares of Radek crashing and Rodney floating away as a ball of white light or worse, failing to float off and just dying of an overloaded brain. He wanted the tension between him and Radek to disappear.

"Wash up and come to bed. It's been, what, three days? four? since you've actually come to bed and slept with us instead of crashing in your office or just catching a nap while Rodney was running around trying to make nice to everyone?"

Carson nodded fractionally under John's hands. "I'm sorry for my mood. Maybe I am just over-tired." He took the soap John offered him and made a quick pass with it and then washed his hair. "You coming?" he asked John when the other man made no move to get out of the shower.

"Go tell Radek you're not mad at him. I'll be out in a minute." He brandished the soap bar in one hand and pulled Carson in for a quick kiss with the other.

&lt;{*}&gt;

Carson dried off and pulled on a pair of boxers. Radek was still sitting on the bed, his book forgotten, staring at a picture of the three of them on the bedside table. Carson cursed himself for putting such an anxious and distraught look on his lover's face.

He lay down on his side next to Radek and took his hand. "I'm sorry," he said simply.

Radek looked at him, but remained silent.

"I've been an arse these last few days. I've been worried about Rodney and about you. But that doesn't excuse the way I stomped off just now or the way I've treated you since you got hurt in general."

Radek scooted down to lay next to Carson. "I felt like I'd done something wrong by being alive."

Carson stared at the quilt. "I'm sorry," he said again not sure what else to say.

"John thinks that perhaps you've gotten used to the idea that he could die in doing his duty, but that you weren't ready to accept that it is dangerous for everyone here in the Pegasus Galaxy." Radek reached up to gently brush back a few wet hairs from Carson's forehead, hoping to show through gestures what he hadn't been able to say with words. That he was alive, that he was there and that he cared greatly for Carson. He'd said it several times since his injury, but it clearly hadn't sunk in. Maybe, now that they weren't all three trying frantically to save Rodney, he'd be able to convince Carson that he was real and okay and not going anywhere.

Carson wove his fingers between Radek's and brought their hands up between their chests. "I'm not sure I can stand the thought of losing either of you," he confessed.

Radek kissed Carson's head. "I know. And neither of us wants to leave you. I know John feels the same way."

Carson felt John slide into bed behind him, an arm snaking around his waist. "Damn straight."

Carson wove the fingers of his other hand through John's and tugged him in a little tighter. "I know. And I'm sorry I've been so damn surly lately. I don't know why either of you put up with the likes of me some days."

"I think Radek pretty well covered that," John said, admitting to having eavesdropped on their conversation.

Carson just nodded. He was starting to feel the tension of the last week fade. Radek was pressed against his chest – his skin whole and smooth – and John was rubbing his back again. It had been far too long since he'd felt that secure, that much at peace. His eyelids grew heavy.

He felt John push gently on his shoulder. "Roll onto your front."

Carson complied and he felt John sit up, and then heard the sliding and rustling of the bedside drawer. When John's hands returned they were slick with lotion. He ran his hands in long heavy strokes over Carson's back, warming the muscles as much as he could. As he relaxed into John's touch, he felt Radek sit up next to him. A few seconds later, he felt equally slick hands working on the muscles on the back of his left calf. He took a deep breath and let it out, deliberately releasing as much stress as he could, sinking another few centimeters into the pillow as he did.

"Feeling better?" John asked as he carefully worked on that same knot in Carson's shoulder that had refused to release in the shower. After a few seconds of gentle pressure with his thumbs, John felt it slip loose and heard Carson 'oof' into the pillow. He took that as answer enough.

"You two are supposed to be pissed at me for being such a jackass these last few days. This really isn't inspiring me to keep my temper in check," Carson mumbled without moving.

"What temper?" Radek asked, setting Carson's leg back on the bed and starting on the other one. "I work with Rodney McKay. You have a long way to go before you will make me think you are having a temper fit."

John and Carson both laughed. No one would ever give Rodney a run for his money in the temper department and they all knew it. And it felt good to laugh again. It had been a rough few days.

Four hands were still working diligently on tense muscles when Carson fell asleep. He woke briefly a bit later to the sounds of John and Radek making love next to him, trying to be quiet, but not able to smother every gasp or quiet plea for more. He debated waking up enough to join them, but drifted off again before he could suit action to thought.


End file.
